I am looking to choose a camera (considering pob-eye II, CMUcam3 & blackfin) that will allow me to do the following (not at the same time but in different projects):

1. object recognition (a known type of object) using just the chosen camera setup and the object.

QUESTION: I imagine it would be easier to do this by just connecting the camera direct to a PC and and using C++ or matlab to do the image processing. -IS THIS POSSIBLE WITH THE ABOVE CAMERAS?

2. object recognition (a known type of object) using the chosen camera setup interfaced with an nxt.

QUESTION: I imagine I would need to interface the camera with a microcontroller and then interface the microcontroller with the NXT...

-WHICH OF THE ABOVE CAMERAS IS IT EASIER TO DO THIS WITH? (AND HAS MANY ACCESSIBLE EXAMPLES WITH DETAILS & SOURCE CODE)

-I IMAGINE THE GENERAL IDEA IS THAT I WOULD NEED TO WRITE CODE FOR THE MICROCONTROLLER TO PROMPT THE CAMERA TO 'GRAB' IMAGES (WHICH ARE STORED ON THE CAMERAS OWN IMAGE BOARD), THEN THE MICROPROCESSOR WOULD USE THE DATA AVAILABLE FROM THE IMAGE(s) ON THE CAMERAS IMAGE BOARD TO PERFORM THE IMAGE PROCESSING. AND FINALLY THE CODE ON THE NXT WOULD READ THE RESULTS OF THE IMAGE PROCESSING FROM THE MICROCONTROLLER.

IS THIS CORRECT?

I will be doing alot more than object recognition but i think if it is capable of doing that then I should be fine; and by object recognition I dont just mean tracking blobs of colour; I need to be able to access and manipulate individual pixels from the images.

I've done alot of programming (C,C++,NXC,Matlab & assembly language) and covered theory on microprocontrollers and interfacing and stuff but I've never actually worked with hardware (apart from the nxt which is easy) so I'm farely new to it. If I could just get answers to the above questions then I can buy some hardware and start working on it. I'd like to go with the blackfin because it has the highest resolution but i will go with whichever one you all suggest!)

THAAANKS...

(SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION BUT NOT IMPORTANT)IS IT POSSIBLE TO Just CONNECT A WEBCAM TO A PC, AND USE IMAGE PROCESSING LIBRARIES FOR C++ or MATLAB TO GRAB IMAGES AND PERFORM THE IMAGE PROCESSING? (OR ROBO REALM, BUT I DONT KNOW MUCH ABOUT IT AND I WOULD RATHER NOT LEARN ANOTHER LANGUAGE!!!!!)